Family calls on driver who hit, killed Collingdale man to turn himself in

COLLINGDALE — His eyes reddened and swollen with tears, Christopher McCaughan welcomed family and friends Saturday as they streamed into the place he and his brother, Timothy, called home, just a block away from where his sibling was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver hours earlier.

“It’s unbelievable,” he said, embracing a friend as he weeped. “This is crazy. You just never know.”

As the McCaughan family faced their loss, borough police were hunting for the man who ran the 58-year-old borough man down Friday night as he crossed the intersection of Clifton Avenue and Spruce Street.

“We’re just hoping somebody recognizes the face, somebody recognizes the car and calls it in,” Collingdale Police Chief Robert Adams said. “My gut tells me this community will stick together and we’ll find this guy.”

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Police are searching for a light-colored male, possibly African-American or Hispanic, approximately 6 feet, 2 inches tall with a close-cut beard, short curly hair, stocky build and wearing a jacket with red in it. The vehicle has been described as a tan, older SUV with square headlights.

Adams gave a sequence of events that began at 9:43 p.m. Friday: “The pedestrian was struck and then they went about a couple of feet up, he pulled over to the right, got out of the truck, looked, went, ‘Aww, (bleep),’ got back in the truck and took off.”

Police plan to reconstruct the accident Monday but the force at which McCaughan was hit seemed to be blunt.

“The impact appears to be that his cell phone literally blew up,” Adams said. “The back came off, the battery came out. It looks like (McCaughan) must have landed on the other side of the intersection.”

Those close to McCaughan were grateful for the police’s efforts.

“Bobby Adams and the Collingdale police are the greatest,” McCaughan’s brother said. And to the woman who witnessed the incident and stayed with McCaughan, he said, “I’d love to thank her personally. I’d love to thank her personally.”

Between police and family accounts, a woman was driving behind the SUV when it hit McCaughan and she stopped to get as much information as she could and she sat by McCaughan.

“She said he tried to say something but he couldn’t talk,” Christopher McCaughan said. “He was probably trying to say, ‘Go down and get my brother.’ Cause he just left here. He just left here. I was sleeping (and) he said, ‘I’m going out.” I said, ‘Well, don’t wake me up.’”

It was the affection shared between brothers.

“I’m just saying no matter what happened, he always loved me,” McCaughan said.

Their cousin, Marykay McCaughan Klara, was also thankful for the witness.

“I think that woman was his angel because he didn’t die alone,” she said. “She was with him. She was his angel at his last moment.”

Klara also said, “Nobody deserved to die like that.”

His brother also vacillated between grief and anger.

“I just hope they get the son of a (bleep) that hit him,” he said. “This guy’s a coward. If he doesn’t turn himself in, he’s going to get caught.”

Adams himself had a personal message for the suspect, “Be a man, turn yourself in if you did it.”

The accident occurred on the same day the community was holding a blood drive in honor of Michael Taylor and Mark McNeill, two Collingdale 15-year-old youths who died from injuries they sustained in a hit-and-run crash Dec. 9, 2011 at Chester Pike and Glenolden Avenue in Glenolden.

“It’s just another smack in the face,” Adams said. “People just have to learn if they’re impaired — if this guy was impaired — you shouldn’t be driving.”

In the meantime, McCaughan’s friends and family recalled the man he was to them.

“Timmy had a heart of gold,” his brother said. “He’d take his shirt off his back for anybody. He’d do anything for anybody. Nobody left here hungry. We had a lot of friends. Nobody ever left here hungry no matter what we had.”

The brothers were caring for their 39-year-old friend, Eric Blankley, until he died in October.

“(Blankley) developed colon cancer that spread to his liver,” McCaughan said. “He didn’t have any place to go so we took him in.”

The McCaughans grew up in a family of four boys in Sharon Hill. A Sharon Hill High School graduate, Timothy McCaughan was known to like dogs, especially boxers, Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers. A father of three, he was expecting his third grandson any day.

Klara said McCaughan faced his conflicts but his family was always in his heart.

“Timmy had a lot of issues, a lot of problems,” she said, “but, his demons are gone now. He’s at rest.”

She recalled how he accompanied her father, Jim, to church before he died.

“The last couple of years before my dad died last year, ... he would go to Mass with my dad at St. Joseph’s Church every Sunday,” she said.

In remission with two bouts of testicular cancer and another with skin cancer, McCaughan said his brother moved into the borough home to help him.

“He came here to take care of me,’ McCaughan said. “He took care of me. He took care of me. I’ve got to take a shot once a week, he gives me my shot. Now, I’ve got to find somebody else to give me my shot. I can’t take needles. I can’t do it. I’m scared of them.”

Uncertain with how life will be without him now, McCaughan was clear with what he’d say to him if he’d been given the chance.